The Pine Tree State GeoArt series will take you on a short trip not far from Stratton. The road is passable by most cars, but bikes and e-bikes are fine too. There is also about a mile or so of walking. Each cache will highlight something interesting about Maine.
Gulf Hagas
In Gulf Hagas, the West Branch of the Pleasant River falls approximately 400 feet in four miles, through a massive pelite member of the Carrabassett Formation of Devonian age. This mudstone is a medium-grade, foliated metamorphic rock (Hanson and Sauchuk, 1991) which was deposited on a submarine slope that led to a deeper basin. The slope on which the mud was deposited was unstable and tectonic activity remobilized sediments. These were redeposited in a variety of slumps and debris flows in the deeper basin. Metamorphic and tectonic activity over hundreds of millions of years has folded these rocks into their present configuration. The dip of beds in this area is close to vertical in attitude.
The modern drainage of the West Branch of the Pleasant River evolved after the final melting of the continental ice sheets over ten thousand years ago. The river followed the easiest path downhill and began downcutting into the underlying bedrock. The Gulf Hagas waterfalls developed over the foliated bedrock surface with the cleavage of the rock dipping downstream at a high angle. Large blocks of bedrock cannot fall away from under the lip of the falls so a series of waterfalls form over the landscape.
Source: The Geology of Gulf Hagas Bowdoin College Grant East, Maine Text by Robert A. Johnston
If Gulf Hagas has waterfalls, the cache is at: N 45° 10.987' W 070° 22.646'
If Gulf Hagas is a desert in Maine, the cache is at: N 45° 10.988' W 070° 22.688'